Hydro-Québec To Supply The US With Enough Renewable Electricity To Power 3 Million EVs

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

By Bruno Marcoux

Hydro-Québec and Central Maine Power Company (“CMP”) a subsidiary of AVANGRID, Inc. (NYSE:AGR), jointly announced the successful conclusion of contract negotiations with the Massachusetts electric distribution companies (EDCs) for the New England Clean Energy Connect (“NECEC”) 100% hydropower project.

Image: Hydro-Quebec

“We have made important progress with regard to this ground-breaking 20-year agreement, moving us closer towards decarbonization in the Northeast,” said Éric Martel, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hydro-Québec. “In the coming months we’ll be working closely with Central Maine Power to complete this important new interconnection project which will not only reduce carbon emissions, but will also bring price stability and supply reliability to the region.”

The contracts with the Massachusetts EDCs provide for the delivery of approximately 9.45 terawatt-hours annually of clean and reliable baseload power, for twenty years. The energy will be supplied by Hydro-Québec’s vast hydropower generating fleet.

We look forward to the next steps in the review and approval process.

What this represents for EVs in the US

Driving electric is one of the best ways to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and contribute to the reduction of GHG. How do we make it even better? By using renewable energy to charge your EV. How many electric vehicles can 9,45 terawatt-hours power ? This chart illustrates the math.

Evs miles/year efficiency (mi/kWh) kWh MWh GWh TWh
1 12,000 4 3,000 3 0 0
1,000 12,000,000 4 3,000,000 3,000 3 0
1,000,000 12,000,000,000 4 3,000,000,000 3,000,000 3,000 3
2,000,000 24,000,000,000 4 6,000,000,000 6,000,000 6,000 6
3,000,000 36,000,000,000 4 9,000,000,000 9,000,000 9,000 9
4,000,000 48,000,000,000 4 12,000,000,000 12,000,000 12,000 12
5,000,000 60,000,000,000 4 15,000,000,000 15,000,000 15,000 15

The Hydro-Québec deal will provide enough renewable electricity to power over 3 million electrical vehicles. According to Plug In America, there are currently 863,000 EVs in America.

But how clean is Hydro-Québec’s renewable energy? 99,8% of its electricity comes from renewable sources. Now that’s pretty clean.

Once the deal is done, you can let everybody know that your electric car isn’t powered by coal anymore, but by 99,8% renewable hydro-electricity.


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Guest Contributor

We publish a number of guest posts from experts in a large variety of fields. This is our contributor account for those special people, organizations, agencies, and companies.

Guest Contributor has 4378 posts and counting. See all posts by Guest Contributor